Feow' Our Own Wochang, Hup,, May 10.
The day upon which the students of China annually. disgrace them-welves is safely past. It appears that there are really two days, viz. May 7 and May 9, the former being the anniversary of the day upon which the iniquitous Twenty-one Demands were presented by Japan, and the latter the day upon which they were signed by the Chinese statesmen in Peking. As to which of the two days brought the more of disgrace and humiliation, seems to be a subject.not quite clear in the students? own minds. The one fact about which they" are quite] certain is, that they must have holiday annually, on which they can go out of school to disgrace and humiliate themselves in public.
In apito of the elaborate preparations which had been made, the two days seem to have passed off quite tamely, Oh Wednesday at 2 p.m. a big meeting was held in a theatre at the end of the Maloo close to the British Concession Hankow.
This meeting was addressed by several speakers, some of whom were delegates from other provinces. The usual talk was made, that China has suffered untold injustices at the hands of Japan, and that it] behoves the students of China to rouse national opinion on the sub-Jeet. Afterwards a procession was formed in 26 sections, After parading along several of the principal streets of Hankow, they crossed the Man, and paraded the principal streets of Hanyang. Then they crossed the Yangtze, and paraded the principal streets ' of Wuchang. There was no disorder at any point. Police and soldiers guarded various points of the route, and were stationed at the river jetties and on the ferry-boats. On Friday, special forces of police and military out again, students were forbidden to cross the river in bodies, und there was no procession at all, On Wednesday, three kidnappers were executed in Hankow, and their heads were fixed up on poles. three different points of the maloo. There was. a popular rumour that these were three of the Honanese who had been arrested a week before on the charge of kidnapping [children and putting them into meat~ pies. But the rumour was incoreet, as it was quite new case. 'The' three men had kidnapped girl from a wealthy merchant' home; but the police had succeeded tracing her and.in arresting the criminals. There is no doubt they deserved the penalty which they suffered.
The putting up of heads in public! places may seem a gruesome method of dealing with crime; but under resent conditions, it really seems the best way to deter others from this wretched crime of kidnapping which is so common.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.